starlightjjk

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The Act Of Taking- Nezriel Revenge Fic

The Act of Taking- Nezriel Revenge Fic

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Do me a favour and don't mention this was meant to be a 1000 word oneshot. I'm very sleepy and may rejig parts of it tomorrow but @katymckateface was promised something and I will damn well deliver something 😂😅 Enjoy whatever this is and let me know what you think x

Her hand is on his thigh.

Her hand is stroking his thigh to be precise.

Manicured fingers trace patterns into his leathers, running over the muscle drawing swirling loops and arches. Maybe she’s writing her name Nesta muses. In shining eyes and heads tossed back in the unrestrained laughter of joy she sees the warmth they share and…they are beautiful.

She, spun of gold and merlot and freesia, is frustratingly beautiful with her hands on him.

Not that Mor is alone in her display of affection.

Cassian’s wing, lit a warm red from the sconces behind it, curves around the Morrigan, encasing her. Her mother told her of men like him. She recalls it now, dry hands braiding her hair as she sat staring herself down in the vanity, her reflection a little too sharp even as her face still clung to the soft roundness of childhood, the rhythmic plaiting and her mama’s lulling voice drawing Nesta into sleep as she warned of those who, like magpies, would chase shiny things. Easy to marry, easy to lose. Men who did not hold onto gold long enough to weigh it.

Wings and pointed ears and ageless eternities did not hide their essence. Men are only men after all, her mother’s words held true.

How like him to chase someone who does not want him.

And the Morrigan, gilded and flawless, velvet clinging to lush curves makes Nesta heart break, like looking at Cassian makes her ribs hurt. In a world so unfamiliar, the night alive and clinging to the edges of the room, shadows kissing the hems of her woollen skirt, in a land she is not meant for, Mor is familiar. A female adept at playing with the attention of others, who wields her beauty like a knife. In a ballroom long ago, on dancefloors she’d never see again, Nesta had done the same. She knew the intoxicating urge to hold onto those you did not did not desire simply because you could.

Wrapped together, in a wine-fuelled haze on the chaise lounge they paint a charming picture, one Feyre might hang on a wall in place of her.

It would be precious if it wasn’t killing her.

It would be sweet if the ribbon of wire wrapped to her ribs didn’t cut into bone until she felt like screaming.

It would be romantic if it wasn’t them.

The Inner Circle are merry tonight, loud enough to compete with the buzzing in her ears, the thumping pain behind her eyes. She misses the question from the only one who has, thus far, remained as silent as she.

‘…hurt you?’

Wrapped in shadows, the edges of his silhouette hazy, a figment of her imagination if it weren’t for the way his glass filled and emptied with merlot throughout the night.

He sits across from her, the only two still at the dining table, its mahogany surface bearing the aftermath of dinner, china marred with the remnants of a feast, silverware thrown atop haphazardly. There is still enough food left on those plates to feed them twice over. The spoon that lies beside her teacup is ornate and delicately engraved.

They wear their wealth casually here.

She did once too, though those memories of brocade and jewels are sketched lightly now, masked by the fog of time. They pale next to the vivid recollection of eating worms from the wet earth, of the endless gnawing hunger that could not be filled. Did Feyre ever wake at night to the feel of their slimy forms still wriggling in her mouth, their segmented peach bodies crushing between molars?

It is the boom of Cassian’s laugh that jerks her back to the present. She has no idea how long it’s been but Azriel’s eyes, dark and deep are locked on her still. He is attentive. Always passing her dishes, finding her a seat, respectful of her silence at these pantomimes. A gentleman her mother might have said, if this were a different life, if he bore a different form.

‘Excuse me?’

She asks, voice hoarse from disuse. It’s been over a day since she’s spoken, trading in nods, shrugs, and the sharp tilt of her head, face set just so to keep conversation at bay.

‘Doesn’t it hurt you?’

His voice, so soft she barely catches the words. His face, what she can see of it is the same. Shadows seep down his brow, like extensions of the curly fringe that masks his forehead.

‘Doesn’t what hurt me?’

The Shadowsinger says nothing, merely turning slightly in his chair to nod at the pair still ensconced in the far corner of the room.

Nesta intakes a breath, a sharp reflexive whoosh of air. That seems to be answer enough for him.

His face contorts with disgust. She’s never seen Azriel so expressive. Always cloaked in his shadows or the mask of apathy he seems to favour, he has remained largely unreadable to her. Until now. She reckons even Amren, still not fluent in the language of expression, could decipher his distress. The tendrils of darkness around him move agitatedly, a churning mess of darkness.

‘Your mate does you great disservice.’

He mutters. Her ribs ache again. Body rebelling against mind. How familiar.

‘He is not mine.’

The words are choked out of her, and yet the male, usually tactful, continues with another cut, like he cannot help himself from spilling that which he can no longer contain.

‘He is not hers.’

The words are hot and his mouth is open to continue when she interrupts him, needing someone else to be bleeding at the table too.

‘She is not yours either.’

Her barb stops Azriel short. The silence sits between them. A third outcast at the table. And it too bleeds until each second stretches like a band, the tension thick between them.

Even in their bubble where time stands still, she can see movement and joy surrounding them. A deck of cards has emerged and Feyre is howling with laughter as she slaps her hand, a full house she reckons, down on the carpet in triumph. How foolish to play against her sister. Whip-smart and cunning and the best liar she knows. When have the Inner Circle ever been wise?

And so, they sit like two wraiths as the clocks stop around them until Azriel reaches for his wine and time snaps back into its rhythm. He swirls the glass by the stem and while examining its contents, declares with a forced lightness,

‘Cassian has always been careless. Always taking from me. Books, wing lotion, knives, …. females.’

Any semblance of civility his voice had held vanishes as he drawls,

‘Forgetful too you know? Very little of what he takes ever makes its way back to me.’

He gulps down wine. It’s the most he’s ever spoken to her alone, outside of weather and war and other such trivialities she thinks drily.

‘Do you truly believe a female can be taken?’

Nesta snarks. Her pulse quickens slightly as Azriel lets the question hang, echoing between them, before raising an eyebrow, the left corner of his mouth pulling into a lobsided smirk.

‘No.. I mean...’

She huffs.

‘Don’t be obtuse Azriel. If we are assigning characteristics I believe that one is Cassian’s.’

The smirk widens into a wicked grin and the Shadowsinger laughs, a sonorous chuckle from deep in his chest that escapes despite himself, even as he covers his mouth to contain it.

‘Oh that wasn’t very nice.’

The words are mocking and delighted and far too cheerful.

He is striking as his eyes glow and his shadows dance. Too pretty to be trusted. As quickly as his mirth arrives it departs however and he sobers himself before answering,

‘You misunderstand me and that is my fault. My words were ill-considered. I am slow to move, in love and outside it. Cassian is quick to jump in and out of emotion. When he.. takes someone I have been yearning for, been courting at my own glacial pace, they rarely turn back to me once he is done with them.’

‘Are there not enough fae in Prythian for you both?’

His eyes darken as his gaze drops to his glass once more.

‘You would think and yet..’

He gestures behind him flippantly.

Nesta snorts.

‘Mother burn me. Men are the same everywhere.’

‘I am no man.’

His immediate contest, confessed bemusedly, is hardly a compelling defence .

‘You’re a man in every way that counts if you truly believe your pissing contest with Cassian has any sway on the Morrigan’s heart.’

Understanding dawns on his face but his expression only darkens as he snarls,

‘I’ll survive Mor’s rejection. Even your sister could read the writing on that wall. He betrayed me.’

Nesta leans back in her seat, eyebrows arched. What a shame Azriel is not hers. He seems, like her, to have the bad habit of clinging too hard to those he cares for. Maybe he’d revel in the marks she’d leave on him. Visions of his sculpted chest branded with her scratches don’t disrupt her quick retort,

‘You’re quite nasty when you’re hurt.’

Azriel cocks an eyebrow at her. The message delivered clearly. Nesta would be familiar with that particular flaw it says.

Too familiar.

The shattered pieces of the Archeron sisterhood prod at her throat, making it hard to swallow.

Familiar enough to guess at what Azriel might be searching for. She reaches for his hand and lays her own upon it, ignoring how he flinches at the contact initially, before grasping at it like a lifeline, the gentle warmth of his scarred palm melting something within her, the pad of his index resting on her pulse taking stock of the uptick of her unsteady heart.

Despite the rumours it has been a long time since she has been touched at all. She revels in the quiet exhilaration of skin on skin, in the comfort they both find in the spaces between words.

She whispers breathily,

‘I’m sorry he hurt you. You deserve better, you know?’

Azriel sighs, a heavy push of air emptying his lungs of life and face of the anger it contained mere seconds ago, until all that remains is something that could be hurt, that could be heartbreak. Cassian is very careless indeed she realises.

‘So do you.’

Azriel glances back at his circle, not one of whom noted his absence, his engagement with the harpy of Velaris.

His jaw is clenched on turning back to her, the remnants of a baleful glare not quite dissipated as he leans towards her, movement calculatedly slow. His plump lower lip drops slightly in surprise as she leans in, her torso pressing against her dinner plate, surely staining her only good dress. She can just about see the dark swirls of tiny shadows that circle his pupils, as the table that has always seemed too narrow is suddenly frustratingly wide. The unbidden need to be close enough to count the thick lashes that frame his eyes, to have the shadows that are stroking her collarbone plait into her hair is urgent and unrelenting.

Her heart pounds in her ears and all she can focus on is the choppy meter of his breath as he murmurs,

‘How about we get out of here?’

His plea is addressed to her lips, eyes affixed on them, following the dart of her tongue as she whets them. In the shadows she has found someone made of the same mettle. In the shadows she has found something new.

The tug at her ribs is easy to ignore when the cool kiss of his shadows trace the neckline of her dress.

‘Take me.’

The Act Of Taking- Nezriel Revenge Fic

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